Sudan

Nuba Mountains - Film Background

Political Context
The Nuba Mountains region (more or less present Southern Kordofan) historically belongs to the North, but culturally, it belongs to a large extent to the South. This formed a main issue of contention during the peace negotiations, to the point that - along with Southern Blue Nile - a special protocol was drafted for it. Supporting these transitional areas is of great importance to ensure the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a sustainable peace process.

The Southern Kordofan State is made up of six localities (Abu Gebeiha, Rashad, Dilling, Lagawa, Kadugli and Talodi) with Kadugli as the capital. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement states that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the National Congress Party will exchange the positions of governor and deputy governor every 18 months for the first three years. At the end of three years there will be a statewide election for governor.

The State spans about 80'000 square kilometres (about the size of Austria) and had a population of about 1.5 million in 2005. The Nuba Mountains region was the first to benefit from the end of hostilities in 2002. Since then, more than 300,000 displaced people have returned home, and around 200,000 are expected to do so in 2006 to rebuild their shattered communities. Just like other conflict-affected areas of return, Southern Kordofan faces immense difficulties in providing basic services such as water, sanitation, health and education to the rapidly increasing population.

The Project Area

Kauda is the village of Youssuf Kuwa, who was a well known SPLM leader and Nuba rights activist. He was also a former school teacher and a poet. Save the Children have built a primary school here with good community participation. The head teacher, Angalo Jaloga is very committed and dynamic and managed to get the school running on his own in 2004. He now has 3 teachers and 5 student teachers to help him with the 183 children. There is an active PTA composed of 6 men and 6 women.

The challenges for the school are still a lack of qualified teachers, a need for more accelerated English courses, a need for a water source close to the school and a source of electricity to conduct evening courses.  The school system in the SPLM areas follows the English system and the New Sudan or East African curricula. In the Nuba Mountains this is posing many challenges because of the low local teacher capacity and hardly any teachers had a good enough foundation in English. The temporary solution is to bring in teachers from Kenya, Uganda or other parts of South Sudan.  In the mean time local teachers are being trained but they need accelerated English courses as well as subject matter education. There are two teacher training institutes in the area one supported by NCA and one (Youssuf Kuwa TTI) supported by Koinonia (NGO linked to Fr. Kizito). The Yousuf Kuwa TTI has 340 trainees of which 100 are women. The local authorities (Regional Education office for the Nuba Mountains) are well aware of these issues but feel it is the only way to reform the education system and give children in the Nuba Mountains a chance of a better future.

About the Filmmaker
Peter Jordan is an award winning American filmmaker and the director of Localfilms, a grassroots production company that partners with international humanitarian organizations to empower communities through film. His films explore pressing human rights concerns from the perspectives of children around the world. He also teaches children how to make their own films, using plastic video cameras and a solar powered computer. He has directed film projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Brazil, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, China, and Sudan. And his partners have included Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and the Christian Children's Fund. Peter is currently pursuing a graduate degree in documentary filmmaking at Stanford University in the US.